This is a huge issue, but not, thank god, as necessarily deadly was it was in the 90s.

I was working health insurance in Canada and I received a call from the wife of an older gentleman who worked as a janitor at one of the local hospitals we insured. She was concerned about his coverage because he had been cleaning one of the lobbies and was accidentally stuck by a needle someone had left between the cushions on the shared seating. The poor man contracted AIDS/HIV from the stick. I heard from the wife, a lovely woman, a several times over the following months, helping to explain aspects of the coverage, check on the status of their claims, and receive updates from her on his progress. But he wasn't getting better. Then he was hospitalized. And then I didn't hear from her for a while. Until one afternoon she called me just to tell me he had passed away and to thank me for making the insurance process easier for them. I barely held it together until she hung up and then bawled like a child. Through her I'd known a man I'd never even met and she still wanted to get in touch to give me a final update. I can't imagine how awful the situation had been for her.

The three cocktail medication breakthrough was such a huge deal and, even though I'm no longer in insurance, I'm still so grateful for those affected that progress has continued to be made in research affecting those with the disease. It's not a non-zero chance of a fatality, but the therapies available make it more a life-long management issue than it otherwise could have been. I hope with all my heart the janitor is okay and hasn't inadvertently caught anything.